


curtains over summer sun

by Deanon



Category: Original Work
Genre: Best Friends, F/F, Gen, dnd-world, off-screen violence, unrealistic inventions as a plot device
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2018-10-30 13:22:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10877646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deanon/pseuds/Deanon
Summary: Before everything changed, there were the island summers and a shack by the docks that was little else but theirs.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My new Best Girl Huli for Shad's campaign, and a bit of backstory with her best friend / gang mate Collette.
> 
> Will always be marked as complete, but I made add more in their timeline as it becomes relevant.

Summers in the Red Isles were a slow death.

 

They tasted like the salt of sweat, of fish cured on the boat to keep them from spoiling in the heat; they smelled like garbage under noon sun and seawater; they felt like grime on your skin so thick you could scrape it off with your nails. Any who could afford it, or could land the jobs, spent the summers on ships collecting treasures to sell in night markets; those who could really afford it lived on the hills in the middle of the islands, with windows open to catch sea breezes and stone floors in the shade.

 

Huli and Collette could afford neither, and the thrushes on their floor had been thrown out when the constant humidity had rotted them into something worse than dirt and so they'd laid down driftwood and called it good. The shack was mixed wood and metal and held heat like an oven, but in the afternoon anything was better than the beating sun, and so they were laying on the floor, taking shallow hot breaths in tandem. Collette had a palm leaf that she had given up on fanning herself with and had just leaned against her head, shading her from the sun that was still coming in the window. 

 

Something outside shifted, and a breeze drifted through their window, a relief sweet but brief; the next breath was so thick again it was as if it had never been. Across the room, Huli shifted.

 

Collette glanced at her, and immediately recognized the look on her face as one that meant she had  _ an idea _ . She was sitting up, skin shiny with sweat but eyes brighter than they had been in days, looking at the window, and at the leaf leaned against Collette, and at the fine chain Huli'd been winding and unwinding around her knuckles all day. 

 

As though she suddenly couldn't feel the heat, Huli sprang up, reached up to wind the chain in her hair (frayed out of its braid, limp, sticking to her forehead) and sprang out the door, clearly on a mission. Her "be right back" was nearly lost to a mostly-closed door.

 

Collette watched her go, then shifted her eyes back to the ceiling, sighing heavily. Considered. It was possible that Huli had gone to grab something cold - but she hadn't brought money, and she wasn't dressed for pickpocketing, her shorts and tight shirt not well-suited for palming anything larger than coins. Anywhere else, and she would have invited Collette along.

 

So she was going to grab things to invent something.

 

Their little shack was littered with things - knick-knacks, sticks, detritus of nature, boxes of fabric, bottles, and things of various degrees of usefulness crafted out of all of the above. It was as tidy as Collette could make it, but Huli hated throwing anything out, and that was hard to argue with when there just wasn't much to have in the first place. 

 

When Collette finally managed to drag herself off the floor, she stepped over to the icebox and started making some juice, figuring Huli would feel the heat once she came back into her own head again.

 

\--

 

Huli came back nearly an hour later, which was long enough that Collete had started to worry (and the ice in her drink had melted, which was her own fault), but not long enough that she'd been tempted to go out and look. She had an armful of string and leaves that she was having a little trouble balancing, although she managed to deposit them all on the ground without dropped anything. "Hotter than the devil's balls down by the dock," she started, "smells like it, too, but everyone's in the shade if they can help it." Materials safely on the ground, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small purse, tossing it at Collette. "Here, got you something."

 

It was light, but the material was good - sailors, then, or merchants, down at the docks. Collette scowled. "Wish y'wouldn't during the daytime, Li, you know what it's like when there's a new ship in - "

 

"Aw, nobody's gonna be chasing me when it's this hot out. Here, can you bring me those sticks? No, the ones with the split on the end - yeah." Huli settled onto the floor and started arranging the leaves, laying their ends together and doing something a little odd with the string around the stems. 

 

Collette leaned against the wall, watched Huli work for a minute. When Huli didn't say anything else, too caught up in what she was doing, Collette gave up and brought over the still-cool juice over to her. "Here. Made this while you were gone."

 

"Wh - oh." Huli blinked. "Thanks, Lottie."

 

Collette breathed out. "Yeah. Well. Thanks for the coin."

 

"I owed you," Huli said, which was probably true, to the point that it was hard to tell which debt exactly she was referring to. Collette was the only one of them who actually  _ worked _ , after all, and Huli's pickpocketing mostly went to Kuishe.

 

Still. If they actually kept an account, they'd probably be in debt to each other for the rest of their lives. Easier to just figure it balanced out in the end.

 

They sat without talking for a long moment, Collette leaning back onto the ground and setting her glass on her forehead to leech some of the heat from her. Huli got up and sat back down a few times, telling scattered stories about the docks and the workers that were new in town, what ships had come in, interspersed with, "Shit, didn't mean to - maybe if I just knot this here - "

 

As the sun was slipping down out of the window, Huli finally said, " _ Hah _ ," and another breeze blew through the room.

 

And then another, and a strange flapping sound accompanying it.

 

Collette opened her eyes and sat up.

 

Huli had constructed - some kind of fan? She was smiling at it, quietly proud, but didn't explain anything - she never really did, preferring to just let her inventions do whatever they did. They were impressive enough on their own (usually), and she knew it.

 

She twisted the string around her finger in a particular way and then pulled it again, and the blades of the fan spun, sending another gust of cool air through the room. Collette let out an involuntary sigh. "Oh, that's amazing," she mumbled, and laid back down on the floor. Huli repositioned herself and the fan, stripped off her shirt, and laid down with her head pillowed on Collette's stomach.

 

"Li - don't, it's too hot," Collette said, shoving at her head, but Huli just pulled the cord on the fan again and sent another burst of cool air over them, and Collette gave up and left her hand on the side of Huli's head, not quite playing with her hair (it was a little gross, anyways, sweaty and course with salt) but just - present.

 

"Happy birthday," Huli said, an interminably long time later. Outside, as twilight fell, the city was slowly beginning to move again. A few hawkers, driven inside by the heat, were beginning to yell the next street over.

 

"S'not for months," Collette said, nearly asleep. She would have to leave for work, soon - but not yet, not until the sun was fully gone. Maybe an hour, yet. "And it's in winter, anyways, so a fan would be a terrible gift."

 

"It's early," Huli said, sounding amused, "and I'm hurt, but you haven't moved since I made it so I call bullshit." 

 

"Mmm," Collette hummed, and drifted off to the sound of Huli's under-her-breath laugh.

 


	2. bloody-toothed smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kuishe didn't make a habit of picking up strays, but she didn't make a habit of most things. Being unpredictable suited her.

"What's going on here," She said, voice as cold as she could make it. There was some satisfaction, still, in seeing the men straighten up at her voice. She held some authority even off her turf, then. "Is that a child?"

One of the men - taller, tattoo'd, clearly a dock rat - spit down at the lump on the ground. It was tainted with blood; his lip was bleeding, not from the split of a blunt impact but from a single fine cut splitting it at the edge. A blade, or something else. Kuishe's assessment of the situation shifted again. "A mongrel," he grunted. "And a thief. She one of yours?"

"She's not worth your trouble," Kuishe's dodged neatly. Whatever else she allowed to happen in this city, if she could stop two dock thugs from beating a child to death, she would. Regardless of the fact that everyone involved was bleeding more than they should be. "Here, this should compensate you for what she stole." She tossed a gold coin at each of them. It was more than they'd make in a week on the kind of ships they frequented, so when she gestured over her shoulder for them to get out, they scuttered before she changed her mind.

Kuishe stepped further into the alley and bent down. "Now, gutter rat, that coin was going to buy me a nice lunch. Whatever your light fingers took from them better have been worth it."

The girl - and she was barely identifiable as such, hair a tangled, unevenly-cut mess, clothes more rag than fabric, head bowed and shoulders curled in - did not raise her head. Her breathing was rattling in a way that indicated she may have taken a kick to the ribs. Kuishe didn't move. She'd heard the yell, the girl was no mute.

Finally, a rough voice - deeper than she was expecting, as though her throat was damaged - said, "Din' ask ya to."

"Coulda left you here to die, but I avoid giving those kinds satisfaction in any way I can." That got her a shaking of shoulders that might have been a laugh, and her head shifted a little. "Come on, consider it a gift, then. Bought and paid for. But at least give me a look at what my generosity is going towards."

Slowly, with surprising grace for a body that had to be in a lot of pain, the girl uncurled. It was immediately obvious that she was older than Kuishe's first estimates; she'd been guessing less than ten summers, but this girl was on the brink of puberty, face robbed by violence and neglect of any softness of childhood. Smeared around her mouth there was blood and paint, mingled together, and that paint told all the story Kuishe needed to hear.

There was worse on these islands than her; worse than even the thugs that would kick a child.

"Oh, little viper," she sighed. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a cloth - black, on her own request, to hide the many stains on it. There was a cobra stamped in the corner. She reached out, clearly telegraphing her movements, to wipe at her mouth. "You shouldn't bite them if you can help it, the blood'll make you ill."

Faster than she could blink, the fabric was snatched out of her hand, and the girl was wiping at her own mouth, too hard. There was a split by her chin that was just smearing blood more, but at least the paint was coming off. The skin underneath was dyed an angry, swollen red. "They cover'd m'mouth," she mumbled through the cloth. "S' I couldn't yell. I bit them t' make 'em lemme go."

"Spit it out when you can, then, and try not to get it on any cuts. The less of them mixed with you, the better." Once her mouth was as good as it was going to get, she reached out and took her cloth back. There was the barest resistance - she still had a child's instinct to hold on to everything, then - but she let go before the fabric ripped.

Kuishe noticed that a hand was still tucked in her clothes, and said, "You got a knife, little viper?"

"Nuh," she said, instant, a little too fast.

Kuishe narrowed her eyes. "I don't take kindly to lying. I saw those men's cuts. Them weren't your teeth, or even your nails."

The girl smiled again. There was still blood on her teeth, ragged hair in her brown eyes, as she said, "Well, got claws too, dun I?"

She pulled out her hand, and it wasn't immediately obvious what it was - a cast, a package, if her hand was even there. It was wrapped in fabric, dark with dirt and blood.

Kuishe reached out to touch it and the girl jerked it away in the same motion, and pain blossomed along Kuishe's thumb - and then she saw it.

The fabric was embedded with broken glass and metal. The girl'd formed a kind of glove around her hands, put the metal between her skin and the glass, and hid the edges of the glass with fabric. The points that poked through were soaked with blood the same as the fabric around them.

It was a clever weapon. Rough, but clearly made with materials scattered all around the alley, and nearly as deadly as a knife that would cost a week's pay in the marketplace.

The girl had lowered her head again. "Dun' touch it." She didn't apologize, but the shame in her voice was so thick that Kuishe heard it anyways.

Kuishe looked down at her bleeding thumb. Barely a brush, and the wound was deep - and tainted. Any deeper, any more vulnerable a place, and a wound from that could make sure a body never bothered the little viper again. "You make that yourself?"

"What, the glove?" The girl looked up again. She clearly wasn't expecting the conversation to continue once Kuishe was bleeding. "Yuh."

"Did someone show you how?" She'd never seen anything quite like this; knuckle guards, spiked gloves, sure, but nothing like this. And not on a child.

The clever little snake looked up, eyebrows drawn together. "Nuh? Mean, I got a piece of glass after - but it cut up my hand so I wrapped it - n' then I wrapped the glass with my hand, n' a bitta scrap from the shores to keep it from cuttin' me up again."

And then she'd soaked it in blood and dirt - disguised it - and gotten it close enough to a man almost two heads taller than her to cut his face.

Kuishe eyed the girl.

"Stand up," she said. "Come with me."

"Where?" The girl said. She didn't move on command, but when Kuishe stood she scrambled to follow her.

"I have a snake's den to show you, little viper," she said, and strode from the alleyway into the hot sun, content with what her two gold coins had gained her.


	3. gentleness is not kindness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kindness made the betrayal worse. Huli would learn that in time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> General warnings: the relationship between a 14-year-old Huli and her mentor is Pretty Questionable, non-graphic mentions of sex trafficking

“Well,” Kuishe said, staring down at the two girls on their knees in front of her. “We know where the money was going, I suppose.” She reached down and clasped a hand around a thin gold bracelet around the taller girl’s wrist, yanking her up by it.

 

Huli, rebellious gutter snipe that she was, stood up too. “No,” she said, quickly, “Please, that was a gift from - “

 

“A man?” She said. “A half-rotted shark, hanging around your friend’s little side-business, scraping off the sides of your earnings? Do you think I’m stupid? I know who it’s from.”

 

The objections died on Huli’s tongue. She visibly shrank bank, eyes darting to the side - and catching on Jian instead. She slumped like her strings had been cut, visibly resigned. When Kuishe reached over with her free hand and pushed on her head, she went willingly back to her knees.

 

_ Good girl _ , Kuishe thought, warm.

 

When she went back to the blonde, taller one - the  _ real _ problem here, she knew - the girl was glaring at her. It was a bit like being menaced by somebody’s declawed house cat. There wasn’t a damn thing this girl could do to her like this, in her home, surrounded by those loyal to her. Her looks, blessedly, weren’t matched by brains.

 

“What was it?” Kuishe asked her, conversationally. When she got no response - not that she’d really expected one - she dug a nail into the girl’s wrist.Stubbornly bare, for now, her alliegence was unofficial. It was an untennable situation, with so many of her most promising den so attached to the girl. But short of holding her down and branding it on her skin, she had no means of forcing it.

 

Maybe the safety of Huli would be enough of a bargaining chip. She was certainly attached enough.

 

Then again, she was fiercely independent enough. And Kuishe didn’t want to be put in the position of a street rat fortune teller calling her bluff. Maybe Jian was right and she  _ was _ going soft for her little viper.

 

Well. Not too soft, still.

 

“I didn’t hear an answer,” she said. “What made you take him up on his offer? Was he handsome? Not from what I heard, but perhaps if your tastes run that way.” In the corner of her eye, Huli flinches. “Did he promise you money? Call you pretty? Say he was protecting you?” She leaned in, and tilted Colette’s chin up. The girl was still so stubbornly defiant, although a low tremor had settled in beneath her skin. So stupidly, hopelessly stubborn. A terrible influence on all of them.

 

“Or - oh,” she said, soft, as though she’d just realized what it could be. “Oh, no, it was much simpler, much more precious to you.” Fingernails digging into the rat’s face, she said, “An escape. A ship.”

 

Stubborn, but a terrible liar. Her whole face fell as Kuishe landed on the truth that she had known the whole time. It was written all over her face, written in her lingering love of luxury and her gorgeous long hair like nobody else on the island. It was the same with all the ones who came her old enough to remember their home, but young enough to romanticize it. If she’d been trying to seduce a bit of prime real estate away from the girl, she’d have gone for the same tack. 

 

Boring. She dropped her, shoved the pretty little thing back in the dirt to turn back to Huli.

 

“And you,” she said, low. “You let her.”

 

“I,” Huli said, and looked at Colette, and away.

 

Kuishe gave her a moment to sort through the possibilities in her mind. Only a few came to mind, and it was genuinely exciting to see which route she would go for. Would she try to take all of the blame on herself, not realizing that played right into Kuishe’s story of Huli being entranced by the first pretty face who looked her way? Would she try to pass it off on Colette, anxious for Kuishe’s approval? Would she try to make it sound forced? Would she suggest that it was neither of their ideas, that they were just silly girls who hadn’t realized?

 

The last would get the best results. It might even soften Jian to them, warm the audience. Make it appealing for Kuishe to show leniancy, if there was no direct defiance to her.

 

But, no.

 

Oh, Huli never took the easy way.

 

“I’m sorry,” Huli said. “It was me, I tol’ her to - “

 

“So you want to get away as well?” Kuishe said, and found she was actually curious. 

 

“No!” Huli exclaimed, looking up. “I - no. I just though’, that it’d be good for her - an’ I didn’ think bout him hangin’ around, thought it was harmless, ‘m sorry - “

 

“Shut up,” Kuishe said, not unkindly. Huli did, instantly. She was so, so good.

 

“What’s a bit of harmless rebellion, between friends?” Kuishe said. “Just a little consorting with the enemy. Just a few gifts for your pretty friend, just a bit of hope in her eyes. I know. You’re not the first to be taken in by a pretty face, viper.”

 

All at once, Huli seemed to realize just what gambit she’d played into. Wisely, she shut her mouth. 

 

“Well,” Kuishe said. “I think I know enough. You,” she said to Collette, “turn around.” She didn’t give her a chance to struggle or resist, reaching out and grabbing her by her hair to yank her over. She cried out in pain, and Huli made a futile motion towards her.

 

When she drew her knife, Huli reached out and took the girl’s hand. They were both visibly trembling. Oh, she needed to end this now. Her little viper’s fangs were sharper than this.

 

“Huli,” she said, firm, and handed her the knife.

 

The shaking was so bad she nearly dropped it. The girl made no attempt to look up, instead making eye contact with Kuishe’s knees as she stuttered, “Kui - my lady, my,”

 

“Cut her hair,” Kuishe said. “If her pretty gold is what’s causing the problem, let’s remove it.” Instantly, Colette made a move to get up, both hands coming up to protect her hair. Kuishe nearly rolled her eyes. “Hold her,” she directed at Jian. Colette didn’t even get a step before her deputy was shoving her back to the ground on her knees, nearly shaking with sobs. “Peace,” she said, with irritation. “It could be one of those pretty eyes of yours. I heard that it makes you a better seer, anyways. And if it doesn’t you could always lie about it.”

 

Huli made a noise like agony. Kuishe didn’t look at her as she said, “Huli. Do it.”

 

After a second when Kuishe was genuinely unsure if Huli would obey, she took a step forward, and then another. She gathered Colette’s hair into one hand, too gently. The fingers brushing the back of her neck were meant to comfort, but Colette was flinching away from them. 

 

The kindness made the betrayal worse. Huli would learn that in time. Maybe they’d both learn that now. It’d be the most valuable thing they learned that night, then.

 

The place where Huli was aiming the knife was too low; still past her shoulders, still nearly the same length as Kuishe’s own. She tsk’d. “No,” she said, “here,” reached forward, and grabbed Huli’s hand to move it up to nearly the length of Colette’s chin. In the process, she pressed into the tattoo at Huli’s wrist, just a soft reminder. 

 

She pulled away. The knife had to be Huli’s.

 

Trembling silence stretched. The conversations around the edges of the room, the dice game over by the far fire, had all paused to watch this. The drama of some young teenage girls wasn’t worth their notice, but a test of loyalty - that was.

 

Nearly inaudible, Huli whispered, “Lottie, I’m sorry,” and pulled the knife with one solid tug.

 

The moment the hair was free, Kuishe reached down to take it from Huli’s hand - she was too shocked to even resist - and tossed it in the fire. To let her be sentimental risked this even being worse.

 

“If I hear of him in your territory again, it will be your eye,” Kuishe said. “Keep him out.”

 

She made a gesture at Jian to release the girl, and let them retreat, confident that Huli was furious, but hers.

 

\--

 

“Lottie,” Huli said, the moment they were out of view of Huli and Jian. “I’m so - “

 

“Don’t.” There was a fine tremor in Colette’s voice, the closest she ever got to tears. The pace of her steps was keeping her just barely out of Huli’s reach. “Just - don’t.”

 

“I - “ Huli said, and then stopped, swallowed her words. They passed out of the warehouse in silence, out of the district entirely; they were nearing the docks when Huli found something to say that wasn’t,  _ I’m sorry _ , over and over. “I’ll get’cha a hair clip. A big one, I’lll polish a shell on it an’ nobody will even notice - “

 

“Do you  _ want _ me to lose my eye?” Colette snapped, whirling on her. “Or how else do you think that bitch - “

 

“ _ Lottie _ \- “

 

“- is going to take it?” Colette loomed over Huli, her fists clenched. “Anyone who gets your attention, your money, your time, that’s _not_ _her_ , she hates it. The more you do for me, the worse it will be. For _me_.”

 

“That’s not - “ Huli stuttered. She didn’t back off of Colette, but her eyes went to the side, her eyebrows drawing in. “What’re you - tha’s how she’s  _ gotta _ be. Ev’ryone in there, they’d take her seat if they could. Ev’n Jian.”

 

“I can’t believe you’re defending her! Even now!”

 

“‘M not  _ defending _ her! I just - I get it!” Huli finally took a step forward, and Colette took a step back, not allowing them to touch. “Lottie, I wish - I wish it wasn’ like this. I wish I hadn’ had to - but I did.”

 

“You don’t  _ have _ to belong to her,” Colette snapped. “We don’t  _ have _ to go back there. Ever.”

 

“Yeah,” Huli said, soft. Not sad, just knowing. “We do.”

 

Angry tears were welling up in Colette’s eyes, and Huli  _ ached _ with it, with knowing that for all that she was younger, she’d learned this so much sooner.

 

And some part of her got it. Some part of her knew why Kuishe had gone for the hair that Colette had treasured since childhood. Some part of her even could see how it was a mercy, in its own way.

 

The hope that had refused to die in Colette was slowly ripping her apart. Her bare wrist and her dreams of going home, they were gonna get her killed. If Kuishe had thought that Colette’s beauty was really the problem, she  _ would _ have gone for the eye. Or the face.

 

(And if she’d ordered Huli to hold the knife then, she - 

 

well. She hadn’t, and Huli didn’t have to think about it.)

 

But the shining hope in Colette, the part of her that truly and fiercely believed that they  _ didn’t _ owe their whole existence to the snake den, that was dangerous.

 

“Lottie,” Huli said, finally, and Colette broke down completely. She buried her face in her friend’s hair and  _ sobbed _ like something had died. It seemed to go on forever. Every sound hurt and Huli wanted to say  _ something _ to make it better, but she’d cried like this after a week on the streets, when nobody’d come to save her and she’d thought she was gonna die.

 

Sooner or later, the child’s fantasy of home had to die.

 

Huli just held her friend through the grief.

 


End file.
